The White House on Sunday issued a blistering 500-word response to a scathing 5,000-word article on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times that says President Bush and his style and philosophy of governing played a direct role in the mortgage meltdown that’s crippling the nation’s economy.

The response accused the nation’s largest Sunday paper of “gross negligence.”

“The Times’ ‘reporting’ in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn’t fit their point of view,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in an e-mailed statement.

In what Allen called an “unusual double-header,” a second statement, “Setting the Record Straight: The Three Most Egregious Claims In The New York Times Article On The Housing Crisis,” was later issued by the White House.

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller defended the reporting, saying in a statement it was, “based on on-the-record interviews with dozens of current and former officials of the current administration.”

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